Background:Staphylococcus lugdunensis is a coagulase-negative staphylococcal species. Until the 90s, association of these bacteria to human pathogenic processes was considered a rare clinical event but during last years infections by this agent have considerably increased and now it has to be considered as a possible cause of breast abscesses, peritonitis, infected joint prostheses, osteomyelitis, discitis, septic arthritis and pacemaker infections.

Objectives: The main goal of this study was to perform the genotypic characterisation of S. lugdunensis clinical isolates recovered by the Microbiology Service of the Hospital Universitario Ntra. Sra. de Candelaria (Tenerife, Spain) during an eight year surveillance period (19992007).

Results: MPCR amplification of the genes mecA and ileS-2 was negative for all the 75 isolates. ITS-PCR patterns permitted to distinguish 18 different genotypes, being types D and E the two major ones constituting the 25.3 and 18.6% of the isolates, respectively. The RFLP-PFGE analysis showed higher discriminative power than ITS-PCR and allowed to distinguish 34 genotypes. PFGE type 11 was the one including the higher number of isolates (8, 10.6%).

Conclusions. This study permits to conclude the existence of a high genotypic diversity within the species S. lugdunensis. We may conclude that the heterogeneity observed is greater than previously reported.

Session Details

Date:

19/04/2008

Time:

00:00-00:00

Session name:

18th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases